GUIDELINES — 12TH ARTE APARTE EUROPEAN ART AND ACTION FAIR 2026
1) The open call is open to artists and collectives of any nationality and at any stage of their career.
2) We accept proposals in all disciplines, including painting, sculpture, illustration, drawing, printmaking, photography, installation, performance, video, sound art, music, dance, theatre, poetry, digital art, artificial intelligence, textile art, collage, and any other form of artistic expression.
We also welcome works that are difficult to place within existing categories. If you are unsure which discipline your work belongs to, submit it anyway. We are particularly interested in practices that go beyond conventional classifications.
3) Participation is free of charge.
4) Each participant may submit a maximum of one work.
5) To submit a proposal, applicants must download and complete the official PDF application form and send it together with at least two images of the work in JPG or PNG format, with sufficient quality for assessment.
For video, music, sound art, performance, or other live or stage-based proposals, a link to view or listen to the work must be included.
The documentation must be sent to: belleartcc@gmail.com
With the subject line: Arte Aparte 2026 Open Call – Name of the artist or collective
6) Submission period: from 10 July to 15 September 2026
An Arte Aparte committee will assess the works based on their conceptual and technical approach, their capacity for experimentation, their feasibility, and their suitability for the ethos and venues of the fair.
7) Once the selection process has been completed, the selected artists will receive an agreement setting out the conditions regarding exhibition, sale, transport, and logistics. This agreement must be accepted in order to formalise their participation.
Notification of selected proposals: 17 September 2026
8) Opening:
9 October 2026. The attendance of the selected artists is encouraged.
Arte Aparte XII will take place from 9 October to 29 November 2026.
9) The selected works may be included in the official Arte Aparte XII catalogue, with Legal Deposit registration, and in the fair’s promotional campaign across social media, the website, the press, and other media outlets.
The organisers reserve the right to use images or excerpts of the works and activities exclusively for the promotion, communication, documentation, and archival purposes of the fair, crediting the authorship whenever the format used allows it.
This authorisation does not entail the transfer of any intellectual property rights relating to the works.
10) In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, the personal data provided will be used exclusively for the management of the open call and communications relating to Arte Aparte.
Participants may exercise their rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection, and restriction of processing by writing to:
Submitting a proposal implies that the applicant has read and accepted these terms and conditions.
OPEN CALL PARTICIPATION
XII EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY ARTE FAIR
Arte Aparte reaches its twelfth edition true to its spirit: a free, non-institutional space open to experimentation.
Every year we build this fair thanks to the work and generosity of artists and collectives, bringing together more than a hundred creators from all over the world.
Our commitment is clear: to give visibility to proposals that challenge comfort and predictability. Arte Aparte prioritizes experimentation —performance, installations, sound art, new technologies, video, collage, and hybrid crossovers— and supports works that question and re-signify the present.
For more than a decade we have been proving that culture is made in the streets, in workshops, and in independent spaces. We have achieved gender parity (50% women), maintained a local pulse (50% artists from Extremadura), and combined it with 25% of artists from the rest of Spain and another 25% from Europe. This is no coincidence: it is real cultural policy.
This work contributes to the city’s cultural horizon: initiatives like Arte Aparte mobilize hundreds of artists and audiences, bringing energy, diversity, and critical thought.
Arte Aparte is creative resistance: saying loud and clear that art does not need permission to exist. We invite those who share this drive to participate, whether by presenting work or by being carried away by ideas. We remain a place where new voices and the most groundbreaking proposals find space and an audience willing to listen.
Agustín Nieto — Director of Espacio Belleartes
